For Elections 2025 in Guyana, keeping promises will be a major election issue. For Elections 2025, the issue of making and keeping promises will loom larger than the usual pattern. In the last decade, Guyana’s government has been under the stewardship of two different political forces. Between 2015 and 2020, the government was the PNC-led APNU/AFC under President David Granger. Between 2020 and 2025, the government was under the PPP led by President Irfaan Ali.
Summarizing the performances of these two political forces in their most recent terms in government boils down to one simple truth: the PNC-led APNU/AFC made many promises in its manifesto and on the political platform during the Elections 2015 campaign and kept none; the PPP made many promises and kept all and went beyond Elections 2020 manifesto promises.
The two major political parties in Guyana have different track records when it comes to elections in Guyana. In the 2019/2020 period, David Granger and the PNC-led APNU/AFC violated the sacred promise of holding elections within constitutionally-mandated timelines. In 2025, President Ali and the PPP have kept their promise to hold elections within the constitutionally stipulated time. The two major political parties have different track records when it comes to keeping promises, with the PNC, invariably, failing to keep promises made, and the PPP, always keeping promises.
Elections 2025 will be conducted on September 1st 2025.It will be exactly five years since the convening of the 12th Parliament. Elections 2025 is within the constitutional deadline which is December 1, 2025. Our last election – Elections 2020 – was held almost a year after it was constitutionally mandated. After the December 21st, 2018 No-Confidence motion was successful in Parliament, elections were due in March 2019. But Granger and the APNU/AFC delayed the elections until March 2020, a whole year after. President Irfaan Ali and VP Bharat Jagdeo had repeatedly stated that Elections 2025 will be held in accordance with the constitutional timeline. They have kept this sacred promise.
Guyanese can expect that President Irfaan Ali, VP Bharat Jagdeo and the PPP members will remind people over and over that the PPP kept every one of its promises made in the Elections 2020 manifesto and during the campaign. In fact, the PPP not only exceeded the promises made, but in many instances went beyond the promises. Because they kept the many promises they made in 2020, the PPP enters the Elections 2025 campaign with a formidable track record.
Education is now free from nursery to university and more young people benefit from scholarships for vocational training and from under-graduate degrees to PhDs. More people own their own homes and personal vehicles, more people are employed, more people own their own businesses. The government is internationally recognized protecting Guyana’s environment, for build a world-class infrastructure, for ensuring that all community streets are upgraded to concrete and asphalt structures, and keeping Guyana’s economy strong in a world where global economies are facing challenging times and many are in turmoil.
In contrast, the PNC-led APNU/AFC will have to defend a track record of failure and broken promises. They broke every single one of the promises they made in their manifesto and in the 2015 campaign. For example, they promised not to close any sugar estate; they ended up closing four sugar estates and was well-advanced in their plans to close the sugar industry altogether. They promised free university education, double the income tax threshold, double pension and give workers a 20% increase in their first 100 days. They not only failed, but they ended up increasing university fees, increase the income tax threshold by a mere 30% over five years, gave themselves 100% pay increase, while telling the workers to wait, pension barely increased. In short, they made many promises; they often did the opposite of what they promised.
In the next three-months, politicians will traverse the country making promises and sometime before the election, the parties will publish manifestos full of promises. Guyanese have become much more demanding of their politicians; they will no longer just take for granted the things they are promised. They will scrutinize the parties, checking to see if their track records align with their promises.
This column warns political leaders and their parties that the Guyanese people are tired searching for honesty in a snake pit.
There was a reason the David Granger-led PNC-led APNU/AFC, with the benefits of incumbency, in Elections 2020, lost badly. They took people for granted, spent five years in government, kept not a single promise, and could not point to a single achievement. They inherited many projects and did not complete any. The Cheddi Jagan International Airport modernization and expansion project was already funded, already under construction when they came into government; the PPP came back into government to complete a project they started. Several highways, several schools and other major projects the PNC-led APNU/AFC inherited from the pre-2015 PPP government were never completed; the PPP came back into government in 2020 and completed them. This is a horrendous track record to go to the people with.
There are many reasons why the popular notion around Guyana and among international observers is that the Irfaan Ali-led PPP government will secure a bigger victory at the polls in Elections 2025. The question is not whether the PPP will secure victory, it is whether they will exceed the 36 seats the PPP won under President Bharat Jagdeo in 2006.
The opposition is already desperate. After they got caught trying to thief the elections in plain sight in 2020, they then tried desperately, but clumsily, to sell the narrative that thousands of dead people left the cemeteries and thousands of phantoms appeared and voted for the PPP. Already, we have a signal which excuse they will use in 2025 – Nigel Hughes is testing the excuse of 100,000 Venezuelans waiting to vote.
